The dividends of democracy are worth the investment expected

History is replete with peculiar forms of human oppression, including slavery, racism, and elites crushing people’s aspirations. Today, the continued rise of authoritarianism in countries such as Brazil, Turkey and of course Russia highlights the need to shore up democracy. The new thing is that this effort should now be global.

As the shadow of authoritarian misgovernance spreads, so does the aspiration for democracy among the common people in search of more freedom and dignity. A Pew Research survey of 17 advanced economies in 2021 shows dissatisfaction with the lack of individual liberty in all-time high authoritarian states. According to the survey, 74 percent of people in these countries had no confidence in Putin to do “the right thing in world affairs”.

Albright’s interesting observation also offers hope that leaders with authoritarian leanings rise and fall in waves. Leave one out, and the other may fall, as happened when authoritarian rule ended in the Philippines in 1986 and followed by similar developments in Chile, South Africa, Zaire and Indonesia over the next decade. This should encourage responsible governments today to begin the process of reviving global democracy.

Sadly, America’s record in this regard is not clean. A recent study by Kyle Strickland and Felicia Wong of the Roosevelt Institute describes how America’s neoliberal economic policies fueled discrimination and inequality in many countries. Furthermore, in Chile, Cuba, Central America and elsewhere, the US has intervened brutally, often not to support democracy but to protect American corporate interests. America needs to take this responsibility as a moral obligation to break down critical aspects of its past and chart a new course for the world, to provide leadership to isolate authoritarian regimes and nurture democracy. will be required.

But it would be foolish to depend entirely or substantially on America. To be sure, some US presidents—notably, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama—have a strong sense of global responsibility. Fortunately, many prominent Americans, including current political leaders, take a similar stance. Yet, as Donald Trump demonstrated, an American leader can be elected by promising to “make America great again,” and, once in office, “America” ​​as his friends, family, and peers. can be defined in.

While many others justify the need for democracy as a means to a desirable purpose, I believe that democracy in itself is essential. If it so happens that democracy has slowed economic growth, we must be prepared to grow a little less to allow equality and freedom to flourish.

This is because the commitment to treat all human beings equally, as democracy requires, is a moral axiom. As Abraham Lincoln wrote in a handwritten note in 1858, “Just as I am not a slave, so I am not a master. It expresses my view of democracy.”

That said, the evidence suggests that democracy is a key component of economic growth. By creating room for dissent, criticism and change, democracy nurtures creativity and innovation, and through that, economic flourishing. Economic progress almost always stops in countries succumbing to religious fundamentalism or authoritarianism. China appears to be an exception, but it is worth noting that democratic Taiwan’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is almost three times that of China.

The best example of what democracy can do is post-independence India, one of the world’s most audacious experiments in building and nurturing an open society. Undoubtedly, the country has made some economic-policy mistakes over the past 75 years, and its annual growth rate in the early decades after independence has been low at around 3%. But democratic investment meant that despite being a poor country, India did well in higher education, research, arts and other creative fields.

The spurt in India’s economic growth since the early 1990s had many reasons, but it also reflected a democratic dividend. Due to the country’s political openness and freedom of speech and criticism, the services sector, which is dependent on creative human capital, began to fuel the growth of firms such as Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services. As of 2005, India was one of the four or five fastest growing economies in the world. Its sophisticated politics had made India a global success story poised for a remarkable success.

This success has come under a cloud in recent years, which have seen increased restrictions on free speech and the media. Not surprisingly, India’s GDP growth has declined every year from 2017 to 2020. The close links between democracy, creativity and economic progress are subtle and long-lasting, but they are real. And they demonstrate the need to encourage democratization around the world. ©2022/Project Syndicate

Kaushik Basu is a former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India and currently Professor of Economics at Cornell University.